Philosophy of Language

Philosophy of Language

Introduction

In this paper, a detailed analysis of Kripke's argument from “Naming and Necessity” is provided. In Naming and Necessity, Kripke challenges the thesis that heat is identical to molecular motion. The thesis is discussed in detail. Furthermore, his claim regarding intuition that the identity is not necessary is also explained. The description on Kripke's specifying the world other than our own is also discussed in detail.

Discussion

Kripke claims that he has an argument that shows necessarily, heat is identical to molecular motion. We can readily understand this rationale of argument. The term “heat” is rigid but it does not pick out its referent in essence. If any other phenomenon like any magnetic phenomenon could affect one's senses in the way we are affected by heat, the people could be in our epistemic condition and application of “heat” to refer to that other phenomenon. Heat is considered as referent of heat not because of its essential nature, but due to presence of contingent facts about how heat affects our senses (Koons & Bealer, 2010). It is why, though it is not possible for heat not to be molecular motion, people in our epistemic condition might be erroneous in stating the sentence “Heat is molecular motion.”

On other hand, the term pain picks out its referent fundamentally, with no dependence on any contingent facts about pain. It is thus not possible for people in our epistemic situation to use to the term pain to submit to something other than pain. Kripke talk about the pain and the heat as types of phenomenon, but it is easier to talk it in terms of properties (Kripe, 1980). We have a corresponding intuition in the case of heat and molecular motion, but in that case we can demonstrate why the intuition is illusory by tempting to the point that heat does not pick out the referent fundamentally. Our initial intuition that heat and molecular motion are contingently linked is dismissed once it is known that what we really meant to say was that, known our epistemic condition, the referent of heat may not be the referent of molecular motion.

In the case of materialist's identity sentence, as both the terms have picked their referents essentially, there seems no analogous approach to amplification away the intuition the pain and the physical property are merely contingently associated. The talk of Kripke regarding explanation of the ...